ANTICIPATION

ANTICIPATION (anticipatio,
πρόληψις).—The power of the mind to project itself
from the known into the unknown, in the expectation of finding what it is in
search of. The term was first used by Epicurus to denote a general notion, which
enables us to conceive beforehand of an object which has not come under the
cognisance of the senses. But general notions, being formed by abstraction from
a multitude of particular notions, were all originally owing to sensation, or
mere generalisations à posteriori.

Buhle (Hist, de la Phil. Mod., torn.
I. pp. 87, 88) gives the following account:—"The impressions
which objects make on the senses, leave in the mind traces which
enable us to recognise these objects when they present
themselves anew, or to compare them with others, or to
distinguish them. When we see an animal for the first time, the
impression made on the senses leaves a trace which serves as a
type. If we afterwards see the same animal, we refer the
impression to the type already existing in the mind.

This type, and the relation of the new impression to it, constituted
what Epicurus called the anticipation of an idea. It was by this
anticipation that we could determine the identity, the resemblance
or the difference of objects actually before us, and those formerly
observed."

The language of Cicero (De Nat. Deor., lib. I. cap. 16) seems
to indicate that by Epicurus the term
πρόληψις was extended to what is supersensual, and included what
is now called knowledge a priori. "Quœ
est enim gens, aut quod genus hominum quod non habeat, sine doctrina
anticipationem quandam Deorum? quam appellat
πρόληψις Epicurus, id est,
anteceptam animo rei quandam informationem, sine qua nec intelligi
quidquam, nec quœri, nec
disputari potest." And according to Diogenes Laertius (lib. VII.
sees. 51, 53, 54), the Stoics defined
πρόληψις to
mean "a natural conception of the universal." This definition was
not, however, adopted by all. Hamilton says (Reid's Works, note A, p. 774):—"It
is not to be supposed that the κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι,
φυσικαὶ προλήψεις of the Stoics,
far less of the Epicureans, were more than generalisations à posteriori. Yet
this is a mistake, into which, among many others, Lipsius and Leibnitz have
fallen in regard to the former " (Zeller, Hist, of Greek Phil., Stoics,
Epicureans, and Sceptics, Eng. transl., for the Stoic teaching, pp. 79, 89, of
the Epicureans, 403, 439 ; Ritter's Hist, of Anc. Phil., Eng. transl.,
III.
426).

In his "Transcendental Philosophy," Anticipations of Perception are the second
class of Kant's "principles of pure understanding." Though the matter of
sensation "is just that element of knowledge which cannot be at all anticipated" but must be waited for, as the
given, yet "if there should be something in
every sensation that could be known à priori as sensation in general, without
any particular sensation being given, this would, in a very special sense,
deserve to be called Anticipation." In all phenomena the Real, that which is an
object of sensation, has Intensive Quantity, i.e., a degree of influence on
sense (Critique of Pure Reason, Transc. Analytic, bk. II. ch. II. sec. 3, Meiklejohn, p. 125; Max Müller,
II.
147; Schwegler's History, p. 224; J. S. Mill's "Psychological Theory" postulates
first that the human mind is capable of expectation," Examination of Hamilton,
3rd ed., p. 219).